Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1887-04-29
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.

SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL.
The species and sub-species of birds
now recognized by ornithologists as be-
longing to the avi-fauna of North Amer
lea number GAL. Of these eighty-two
may be regarded as stragglers from other
countries, leaving S59 species of which
this continent may properly be called the
habitat.
A scheme is on foot to utilize the pres
sure of the fresh-water wells of Florida
for manufacturing purposes. Water is
found at depth of $50 feet, and in many
wells there is a pressure of fourteen
pounds to the square inch. The theory
entertained is, the deeper the well the
greater will be the pressure.
The fish commission states that the to.
tai distribution of shad fry for the season
of 1886 amounted to 80, 900, 900. As the
entire number of shad taken for the mar
ket was less than 100000 it will be
seen that for ever shad taken from the
waters the past season, fifteen artifcially
hatched young shad have been returned.
Vulcabeston is the name of new arti-
Gle intended to combine all the valuable
qualities of asbestos and India rubber of
which it is mainly composed, although
other vulcanizable materials enter into its
composition. 1t forms substance of the
toughness of horns, although it can be
made of any degree of fexibility. 1t is
a non-conductor of electricity, and stands
the severest tests of acids, steams, gases,
etc.
Meerschaum ranks among the most i'm
portant mineral products Of the Turkish
Empire. 1t is a magnesite or hydro sill
cate of magnesia, and is found in exten-
sive masses in the lower transition beds,
in the Crimea and the Island of Negro
pont, but most abundantly in Asia Minor.
Some twenty beds of the magnesite are
worked near Eski-Sheir. They belong
to the Turkish Government but are
farmed out to European companies.
A scientific observer in Lebbeke, Bel
gium, who has kept a record of the
church bells and the weather for over ten
years, to determine the distance the bells
may be heard under varied conditions,
finds the sounds are heard farthest when
the movement of the air is cyclonic, or, il
calm, when the air is very moist. Some
times contrary winds make no obstacle
to sound transmission. Sounds are heard
the greatest distance between 1 and 2
o'clock in the morning. Certain clocks,
six and eight kilometres southwest of
Lebbeke, are called water clocks by the
country folk, because rainy period
always sets in soon after they are heard.
Professor J. S. Newberry defines al
earthquake as q movement caused by a
shrinking, from loss of heat, of the heated
interior of the earth, and the crushing to-
gether and displacement of the rigid ex-
teriCr, as it accommodates itself to the
contracting nucleus. As the nucleus con-
tracts, the solid crust cannot accommo-
date itself, moment by moment, to the
loss of volume for it resists by its rigidity,
and is brought into a state of strain,
which is relieved, from time to time,
whenever it passes the resistance of the
materials composing the crust, by crush
ing together and displacement of the
surface rocks. When the data collected
in regard to the Charleston earthquake
shall have been tabulated, it will doubt
less be found that the displacements
which occasioned the vibrations were
located along line parallel with the
Alleghanies, and at depth of from 10, :
900 to 20, 600 feet, not under, but west.
ward of the city.
At the moons surface, the force o.
gravitation being very much less than at
the earth's surface, being constituted
like man, and endowed with the same
muscular energy, could leap an astonish-
ing misunderstanding, for example, a
three-story house with the same ease that
he would clear fence on she earth; a
stone thrown from the hand of a
thoughtless boy might fall in an adjoining
county armies could engage in battle at
great distances apart, and all kinds of la
Dor would be greatly lightened by reason
of the diminished weight of tools and
materials. While this state of things
might not render human life, endowed as
we have it on earth, impossible on the
moon, the opposite state of things which
would prevail on Jupiter and Saturn
would certainly render life burden. The
masses of Jupiter and Saturn being so
much greater than that of the earth, the
corresponding greater attractions which
they would exert would so impede loco
motion that unless endowed with
enormously greater muscular power than
he is gifted wish on earth, man would
only be able to crawl along as though his
feet were weighted with lead.